Disembody
by Flurrin
Summary: All that training on Lyoko never prepared the team for the real world. When Ulrich is hurt in the line of duty, it's up to his friends to find a way to save him, and the supercomputer might be his only chance. Set seven years after Jérémie shut down the supercomputer. Canon pairings.
1. Chapter 1

Yumi finished pouring Aelita some tea from her parent's antique set. At this point it was clear Aelita had come over to show her something. The pink-haired young woman seemed to be hiding whatever-it-was behind her slender seated form, but as far as Yumi could see, she wasn't holding anything.

"So." Yumi sat down, one hand supporting her chin. "You seem excited. What's on your mind?"

Aelita leaned forward, smiling. She opened her mouth to speak, then giggled and snapped it shut again. "I can't seem to figure out how to say this." She combed her long, pink hair with the fingers of her left hand.

Yumi noticed it immediately. Her mouth dropped open in a grin. "Aelita, that's a beautiful ring."

She gave a tiny squeal, revolving the silver band with the vibrant green gem around the base of her finger. Her hair swayed as she shrugged her shoulders. "Thanks, Yumi. After all these years, Jérémie finally got up the courage." She laughed. "I almost gave up hope for him. But I bet all this time he was just trying to find the perfect gemstone!"

Yumi hugged her with one arm. "Don't you worry about him. If there's one thing Jérémie has plenty of, it's courage. I'm so happy for you two."

Aelita's mobile buzzed, and she blushed suddenly. "I bet that's him!"

"Well, go on, answer it!" Yumi gave a smirk.

"It is him!" Aelita practically shrieked as she caught sight of the caller ID. Then she regained her composure and answered the call. "Jérémie?"

Her smile faded and she stared grimly into space. "Yes, she is. All right, I understand. Here she is." Aelita held the phone out. "It's for you."

Yumi tilted her head quizzically as she accepted the mobile, her eyebrows furrowed. "Hello?"

"Yumi, it's Ulrich."

Any other day, Yumi's heart would have skipped a beat at the officer's name. Any other day, a minuscule trace of the stupid grin Aelita wore whenever she was with her fiancé would have crept onto her face. But this day, Jérémie's voice was low and serious.

"H-how…what happened?" she managed, blinking.

"He's been shot."

* * *

Odd Della-Robbia sat on his bed, leaning against the corner of the wall of his two-room apartment. He'd seen this coming. This morning, while trying to clean up part of the wreckage that was his kitchen, he'd broken three dishes. Then he'd had a terrible stomachache for a good portion of the day. He had known something grim was coming. He'd just hoped it would be something more like a XANA attack. Those had been easier to deal with.

Now he was just nodding as Jérémie explained the disaster. Sissi squinted at him from across the room, sensing his dismay.

Oh, not _that _Sissi.

Odd had gotten a new dog.

"Hiroki was there," Jérémie was saying, "And Ulrich saw it coming, so he took the bullet. He was wearing a ballistic Kevlar vest, but the assailant was virtually adjacent in proximity, so the projectile punctured the material—"

"English, Einstein," Odd said patiently. "I'm attending an art college! I'm not getting my degree in vocabulary." He felt calm, despite the circumstances.

There was a pause. "Sorry, Odd. …The man who shot Ulrich was right next to him, so the slug punched through Ulrich's bullet-proof vest and hit him in the abdom—gut."

"But he's alive, right?" Odd tried to sound cheerful.

Another moment of silence. "…For now, he is. There were complications. There's nothing they can do for him except make him comfortable."

"Oh, man…" Odd clasped his forehead. Sissi, the Pekingese, padded over and hopped onto the bed next to him with a sympathetic whine. "Are we going to visit him soon?"

"Sort of." Jérémie's voice gained a familiar, commanding edge to it. "I said that there's nothing _they _can do for him. Can you meet us in front of the hospital at ten o'clock tonight? William's coming, too. He took some time off."

Odd glanced at his digital alarm clock, which registered 8:06 pm. "Sure, what happens then?"

"I want to test out a theory."

* * *

"How did you get him out?" Aelita ran up to the gurney. Ulrich was breathing shallowly, and he looked terrible.

William grimaced. "Don't even ask. What we did was seven different shades of 'illegal'. We have to make this quick."

Five people and the stretcher couldn't fit in the old factory elevator, so they went three at a time. Yumi desperately wanted to stay with Ulrich, but every look at his pale, unresponsive face made her lose her nerves, and two of them were needed to lift the heavy gurney across the uneven factory floor.

Naturally, Odd and William kept this job. Yumi saw Odd smile hopefully at William as the door closed on them, but William didn't return it, merely nodding instead. Yumi was glad William had stayed in the area. Maybe he used to be an annoying flirt, but he certainly knew when something was important, and Lord knows Jérémie wouldn't have been able to support the gurney very well.

Jérémie's poor physical strength was a distracting thought, and Yumi clung to it as her two friends guided her down through to the basement of the factory.

"I've already started up the supercomputer," Jérémie told the girls. "I'll start the scanner."

"Come on, Aelita." Yumi tightened the grip she hadn't even realized she had on her friend's hand. "Let's make sure nothing goes wrong when the guys put Ulrich—"

She was unable to continue. Stupid. Of all the words to choke on…

Aelita wasn't trying to keep a lid on her emotions. The tears flowed freely down her cheeks, just like they had when her father had sacrificed his life for her almost seven years ago. Yumi envied her. She didn't know how to do that—how to be so secure in her inner strength that she wouldn't mind people seeing her cry.

Yumi had always seen crying as weakness, but Aelita was not weak. It was possible that because Aelita _could _cry, that made her stronger than most of them.

William and Odd were unstrapping Ulrich when the girls rushed in. They all helped lift him gently and set him down inside the round scanner. Blood immediately began to drip onto the scanner floor as Yumi made him curl his knees to his chest, an action that was painful but necessary to make him fit in the cylindrical pod. His eyes opened and shot towards her, but they were unfocused. His mouth twitched open.

"It's going to be all right," she whispered to him.

He managed to lift a hand off the floor and angle it towards her, but she was already running back towards the elevator shaft. Both the scanner and elevator doors closed simultaneously.

* * *

Ulrich was alert the moment he gained feeling and the use of his eyes on Lyoko. He watched the wireframe of his body being traced and fleshed out, and when the artificial gravity hit him, he landed in a crouch, like an old pro. The bright green floor of the Forest Sector seemed to bend slightly under his feet.

Being virtualized was such a nostalgic feeling. It might have made him get all misty-eyed if Lyoko had a tear simulation program. He smirked for a second, then looked around in sudden confusion.

Why was he here, again?

"Jérémie?" he called. Or had Aelita virtualized him? "Hello?"

"Ulrich!" Jérémie answered. "How are you? Are you in pain?"

"Pain? N—oww…" Ulrich doubled over as a simulated shock of agony ran though his systems. The feeling originated in his torso and spread quickly, then disappeared. "Yeah, Jérémie. What's going on?"

"Sorry, it's just a message to let me know something's wrong with your avatar. I can disable it. Hang on a second." Jérémie sounded distracted. There was a burst of static, like Lyoko's thunder, as someone adjusted the microphone.

"If something's wrong, shouldn't you bring me in?" Ulrich furrowed his brow, trying to remember what the situation was. There came another flash of pain, and Ulrich wrapped his arms around his waist as if to keep himself from falling apart. "Jérémie?"

Aelita's voice reached him. "Ulrich, it's me."

"Aelita, what's going on? Are you coming?"

"No, XANA hasn't shown up. Ulrich..."

Ulrich huffed in impatience. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Hir-Hiroki's fine."

Ulrich paused for a moment. Cadet Hiroki Ishiyama. Mugger Moreau. The alley. Ulrich felt like blood was rushing to his head. He sat down against the roots of a digital tree to counter a wave of dizziness.

"Jérémie disabled the pain simulation. Are you okay, Ulrich?"

"Give me a sec," he said.

Hiroki had his back turned to Moreau, but the criminal had regained consciousness. His fingers curled around his gun.

Stupid mistake, thought Ulrich. I should have kicked it far, far away.

And then, though Moreau was still on the pavement, the gun tipped up, pointing towards Hiroki's shoulder blades.

And the dang kid wasn't wearing a bullet-proof vest. Stupid, stupid mistake.

He stood up again. "...I get it. That crook. But that doesn't explain why I'm here. There's a gap in my memory about a mile wide."

Aelita's voice returned. "You've been shot."

"Yeah, okay, I remember that part."

There had been no time to speak; no time to breathe. The gun was already loaded and Moreau was squeezing the trigger. So Ulrich did the one thing he always suspected he'd end up doing.

He'd leapt between the bullet and its target.

* * *

"Ulrich, you idiot," Yumi growled, her eyes squeezed shut.

Aelita's hand fell on her shoulder in a comforting gesture. She was still talking to Ulrich. "Jérémie thinks that if we keep you on Lyoko for a while, you have a chance to..."

"Survive," Ulrich's voice filtered out of the tiny speaker. "Got it."

An error message popped up on the screen, and Jérémie read it grimly. "Something's wrong. His life point count is dropping." He leaned close to Aelita and tilted the mouthpiece towards himself. "Ulrich, can you get to a way tower? We'll come in if you need help."

"Sure thing, Einstein. I'll be fine. The place is deserted."

There was an anxious wait as the little arrow that represented their virtualized friend padded across the map on the screen and shot into the nearest tower. Jérémie's eyes twitched across streams of data and computer code. His head slumped beneath his thin shoulders. "He's still losing life points. It's slow, but eventually he'll be devirtualized. Aelita, please give me the headset."

"Mmhmm." Aelita slipped the piece out of her rosy hair and held it out for him.

"Ulrich, there's one more thing we can try, but you might not like it. You need to be absolutely sure."

"Okay, shoot."

"Well, Aelita is technically thirty-one years old. When we found her, she'd been in the supercomputer for ten years, and she still looked fourteen, rather than twenty-four. Have you ever heard of cryonics?"

"Cryonics, what's that, a rock band?"

"No, it's the theoretical science of preserving a body in ice until contemporary medicine evolves far enough to revive them."

Silence.

Biting his lip, Jérémie continued. "The information for a user can't change if the supercomputer is shut down. So if we turned the computer off, you...wouldn't lose any more...life points. And we could keep you there...as long as we need to."

William listened with interest. Yumi choked, and Odd rushed over to her. Aelita began shaking her head very slowly.

Ulrich remained silent. Jérémie brought up his eye-cam, and the avatar's brown boots came into view.

Jérémie swallowed. "If you just want to come back right now, you'll...you'll be among friends."

"How long do I have to think it over?"

"Take your time," Aelita answered, taking the mic back from her fiancé.

Jérémie pulled his glasses off with one hand, leaning over the keyboard. His fists curled until he looked ready to snap the frames in half. "Darn it!" He yelled. "Why couldn't they have told us? Yumi, at least, had a right to know what happened. If Ulrich's parents had told us what happened right away, I could have launched a Return, but now it's been too long. The computer can't bring him back that far."

Silent, Aelita loosened Jérémie's grip on his battered eye-wear.

Yumi began sobbing gently and Odd bit his lip, hugging her. William walked over to join them.

"It'll be all right, Yumi," he said, though he knew nothing was farther from the truth. They only had two options now, and both were disastrous.

Odd nodded half-heartedly. "Einstein'll figure it all out." He looked up at Jérémie, who sighed deeply, still bent over the monitor.

"Jérémie? I'll do it," Ulrich said finally. "But you guys...you gotta promise to turn me back on."

"I swear!" William shouted without hesitation.

"We promise." Another tear streaked its way down Aelita's cheek.

"Then go for it," Ulrich sighed.

Jérémie straightened with a determined expression. "Okay. Aelita, let's go. We'll shut it down together. Give Yumi the headset."

"Hang on! My turn first!" Odd snatched it and hopped into the computer chair. "See you soon, officer! Don't go and lose your memories of us, okay?"

Ulrich chuckled. "Nahaha, I'll try not to."

William was next. "I really did admire you, Ulrich, I want you to know that. You weren't just a rival or something to me. I should have made more of an effort to be your friend." As he spoke, the elevator door opened, and Jérémie and Aelita vanished inside.

"Thanks, William. Sorry I went and did something stupid. At least it did get us all back together. But I swear, if you make a move on Yumi while I'm gone, I'm gonna punch your face in when I get back," Ulrich answered solemnly.

Yumi stiffened, but William just laughed. "I can't stop loving her, Ulrich. But I don't think she'll ever stop loving you, either." He gave the mic to Yumi. "We'll leave you two alone, now. Come on, Odd, we have to go get rid of the evidence."

With a calm smile, William squeezed Yumi's hand, then yanked Odd out of the raised chair and left in the elevator. Yumi's finger's fumbled as she put the headset on.

"Uhm, Ulrich?" she ventured.

"Hi, Yumi. I'm really sorry."

Her voice was trembling, so she pitched it lower. "Don't be. You saved my little brother's life."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"I don't know. W-we'll think of something."

"Will you come back for me?"

She sat perfectly still. "I swear it on my life."

"Then I'll be okay." The eye-cam showed Ulrich's perspective as he sat down against a tree and wrapped one arm around his knees.

Yumi tried to clear the lump from her throat with little success. "Ulrich—"

"Yeah, Yumi?"

She closed her eyes. Her shoulders and jaw shook as she struggled to communicate. "There's something that I need to say...that I should have said years ago..."

She could almost hear his soft smile. "It's okay, Yumi," he told her. "I know what it is."

"Yeah." She relaxed. "I know you do. We have seconds left. Do you want me to say it?"

"No. When you tell me, I am going to be there, in the flesh. That's my promise."

The screen showed a loading bar. _Shutting down. _"Okay. Time's up. See you later, Ulrich."

"See you, Yumi."


	2. Epilogue

Ulrich startled awake. For a moment, he was terrified. All of his senses had been stripped from him, leaving him floating numb in an empty, hellish void. Then his memory returned, file-by-file, as the supercomputer booted up.

It wasn't the first time his friends had come to visit. There was always a little time to say hello before the timer appeared and his life points began dropping like flies. Jérémie, of course, had the timing down to a science, and he was working on prolonging the counter so they could converse more and more freely.

Jérémie had hooked up a webcam so he could look them in the eyes now whenever the computer was turned on. Ulrich always knew what to expect. Odd's cheerful facade would take a moment to wipe out his brief expression of worry or sorrow. Aelita would be wincing in sympathy—only she knew what it was like to wake up inside the supercomputer. Jérémie was hard to read, considering the computer screen often reflected on his glasses and obscured his eyes, but he would usually be smiling. William would shoot him a thumbs-up or laugh about some inside joke, always keeping a respectful distance from Yumi, who would be standing in the background, stone-faced until she heard his voice.

Even if his avatar screwed up or the painful 'notifications' were activated, Ulrich benefited from these visits. Living inside a computer made his mind adapt whenever it was switched on. He could finally understand half the stuff Jérémie had always prattled on about. And when he tried hard enough, or accessed a panel, he could actually affect Lyoko with certain codes.

As usual, when Ulrich's three senses were granted to him, and he found himself lying curled up in the center of a way tower. He was already virtualized, so there wasn't any data the computer needed to retrieve. Jérémie had taught him how to open a panel and bring up visual so he could see his friends, and Ulrich did so as their voices came over the speaker.

"Happy birthday!" All five of them yelled at once, nearly breaking the microphone in the process.

He paused. "Birthday? Again? Seems like I turned 22 about three minutes ago." Once again, he was startled at the changes that appeared in his friends. William had gotten a haircut and was working on a beard. Jérémie was wearing a different style of glasses, and Yumi had pinned her overlong hair in a bun on top of her head. And while Odd's outrageous wardrobe choices would never be tamed, his garish clothing was currently only half-visible under the apron he'd been provided by the catering company he worked for. Aelita was the least affected by change. She sat in the computer chair, her husband at her side.

"Oh, come on, Ulrich, it's been at least six minutes for you." Jérémie crossed his arms.

Ulrich innocently tapped the panel, bringing up a command box. "Hmm, I guess. Did you bring me a present?"

"I baked a cake, but I ate it."

"Thanks, Odd. Nice to know you care."

"I try."

Ulrich typed a complicated code in the box, his finger hovering over the Enter key. "Hey, Jérémie, can I ask you something real quick? Is my avatar on here damaged? What's the deal?"

"Well, no." Jérémie's glasses had begun to slip down his nose. He pushed them back up quickly. "On Lyoko, you're physically fit as the metaphorical fiddle. But your earth body was really badly damaged when we got it here, so that carried over when you were virtualized."

"But the digital info, it's stable on its own, right?"

"What are you getting at, Ulrich?" Aelita asked, scrolling through information.

Ulrich tapped the Enter key. "I'd kinda like to talk to you guys for more than like three minutes at a time." His fingers entered in a few more lines of code. It was a fairly simple process, just like sending a few files to the recycle bin on his own laptop. Except with his fingers instead of a mouse.

A beeping started up in the tower, right on cue, and Jérémie leaned over the keyboard. "Counter's started up. I'm shutting you down again."

The avatar shrugged. "I got time."

"What the—Ulrich, did you lock us out?"

He smirked, then shook the expression from his face. "Sorry, guys, I'm gonna do something stupid."

Panic shot across Odd's face. "Ulrich, no, what are you trying to do?"

Yumi had charged over to the terminal. "Ulrich, please don't give up hope! You're the reason I joined medical school! You—you promised!"

"Whoa, not _that_ stupid." He laughed as he entered the program.

It took a minute to take effect, then the beeping abruptly ceased. All four monitors went black, and everyone in the room froze.

Jérémie' was speechless for a moment, but his logical side quickly reminded him there wasn't any time to waste. "William, Odd, go see if he was devirtualized. Aelita, try and—"

The screen flicked back on.

"Looks like a system reboot," Aelita noted, rapidly tugging her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her face. "I can't tell what he did yet, or if..."

William and Odd were halfway to the elevator when Ulrich's voice came again. "You guys should have seen your faces."

"Ulrich, you jerk!" Yumi was quaking visibly.

When his face appeared onscreen, he looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Yumi, that was pretty low of me, huh. But you didn't really think I'd pull my own plug, did you?"

Aelita entered several keywords into a text box on one of the smaller monitors, but search results came up negative. "Oh, Ulrich," she sighed.

"What'd he do?" Jérémie leaned over to read.

"He deleted his genetic code information and cut off all ties to his original body." She tapped her fingernails against the keyboard, supporting her face on her other hand. "He's just like I was nine years ago, except he copied all his memory files."

"Turns out computers are easier to understand than I thought, Jérémie!" He shrugged. "I mean, I still don't understand algebra, but I guess it's like learning a foreign language. If you get exposed to enough of it, you start picking up words and phrases here and there."

"Why would you do that?" Yumi's hands balled into fists. "How could you?"

"Yumi, I just...I'm tired of not being able to live my life. You guys are all aging and moving on without me."

"You promised!" she snapped, slamming one hand down on the arm of the chair. Aelita flinched away in alarm.

"Watch the equipment, there," Jérémie said nonchalantly. "...You know, Yumi, I could always write him new DNA codes."

"That would take days," Aelita argued. "We're adults now. We don't have that kind of time. I agree with the idea, but it wouldn't be possible unless..."

"Unless we went back to when we did have time," Odd casually suggested.

"That kind of thing doesn't work," Jérémie muttered. "It's why this happened in the first place, remember?"

"What are you guys talking about?" William bobbed his head, miffed at feeling out of the loop for the first time in years.

"Actually, me and Ulrich..." Aelita pulled the ponytail back out of her hair and swiveled to face Jérémie. "We've been adding minor touches to the supercomputer, and we found some data...We wouldn't be able to reconstruct his body now that that information is lost, but it would recreate everyone else, and Ulrich would oversee the process from inside Lyoko."

Jérémie just stared at her. "You're kidding me. How would I have missed a process as important as that?"

"It wasn't so much of a pre-existing process as something we made up as we went along," Aelita confessed. "That timer we worked on together? That was a large part of it. Obviously we couldn't keep the supercomputer on for more than a few minutes at a time, so it was slow going, but Ulrich had some very...different theories."

Ulrich grinned. "She just means I'm so dumb that I accidentally had a good idea. But I didn't actually mean for you guys to do this. You've already had to make a lot of tough decisions for me and you all have your own lives now. It'd be crazy to abandon that and go back to _high school_."

"Well, why not?" Odd shrugged. "We know all the ins and outs, I'd get to see Kiwi again, and I've kinda missed Old Jimbo and Mrs. Hertz."

"And Sissi," Aelita cut in. "Don't even bother denying it."

"Sissi was a huge pain." Odd grinned. "But I always got a kick out of beating her to her own punchline."

"Are you guys seriously talking about time travel? I thought you were messing with me when we talked about that as kids." William chuckled. "Guess I've seen stranger things."

"Yeah, William, would you be okay with this?" Jérémie turned to study him. "We'd have to repeat the tenth grade through college."

"I didn't go to college." William paused. "To be honest, I wouldn't mind a second chance at improving my grades. And if it means finally being a real Lyoko warrior with you guys..." he trailed off, hoping he wasn't being presumptuous.

"That's one thing I'm afraid of." Aelita bit her lip. "This program could reawaken XANA. We know it can't bring the dead back to life, but considering XANA was never a living being..."

Ulrich tilted his head. "I can't believe you guys are actually considering this."

"And what about you, Yumi?" Jérémie asked. "What do you think?"

"I'd fight for Ulrich in a thousand different timelines if it meant bringing him home," she said quietly. Odd rested a hand on her hunched shoulders, smiling, and she looked up, revealing a faint blush across her cheeks.

"This is so cool." William's old eagerness crept into his grin.

"Let's go for it, Einstein!" Odd punched the air.

Shaking his head, Ulrich held up his hands. "Naw, come on, guys, you don't have to do this for me."

Aelita stood and proffered the computer chair to Jérémie. "Your Majesty, the royal throne is waiting."

"Haha. This is exciting." He sat down and craned his neck briefly. "You guys all ready for this? Return to the past, now!"

* * *

"And when's the last time you saw this kid?" The police officer cocked one eyebrow.

Odd shuffled his feet. "Nine ye—ah. It was three days ago. He lives at a boarding school, so I figured his family wouldn't have contacted the authorities quite yet."

"Well, thanks for telling me, young man. I'll ask around."

"Sure thing. See you." Odd jogged out of the station to meet Jérémie's stare. "I don't remember being this much shorter."

"Cheer up, you've got a growth spurt on the way." Jérémie flipped his laptop open on the bench. "We did it, Ulrich, you've officially run away from school to join a circus."

"Ha-ha," Ulrich deadpanned. "Long as you don't make me wear the clown costume."

Jérémie stroked an imaginary beard. "No, but you might be wearing the samurai outfit if I can get you translated here. Not quite the same as materialization, but it's better than nothing."

"Pf. Yeah, that would be fun. I could socialize all I want. On Halloween."

"You know, I'm already starting to miss the days when Aelita was the one who lived in my computer."

Odd whacked him on the back, unintentionally driving the breath out of the bespectacled boy's body. "We should head to the factory. Can't keep our damsel in distress waiting."

Jérémie closed the laptop lid and slid it into his backpack. "Who, Aelita? Yumi?"

Odd winked. "No, Ulrich."

"The laptop's still shutting down, Odd! I heard that!" came a tinny voice. Odd cackled and dashed away.

Jérémie couldn't laugh and run at the same time. "How was I this out of shape?!" he panted. "When was it we started training with Jim?"

"Not for at least another month. Race you there!" Odd called over his shoulder.

Jérémie shouldered his backpack properly. "I'm getting too old for this!"

"You're in your twenties at the oldest!"

"Sure, but if you add up all the Returns we've ever done...whoo! Wait up."

They reached the factory without incident, meeting Aelita, Yumi, and William in the lab room. It was strange to see the place in such good repair. It looked brighter and cleaner than they could remember. The Lyoko display whirred and spun in the center, lighting up their faces.

"What do you think, guys?" Jérémie took his place in front of the monitor. "Ready to go into Sector Five?"

"Uhm," Yumi cut in. "We still don't know what happened to XANA in this timeline. I think our priority should be to get William trained up."

William rubbed the back of his neck. "...Yeah, I don't think anyone wants a repeat of what happened last time..."

"We'll be there to help you this time," Odd promised.

"Well, go on! Get to the scanner room!"

Odd snapped to attention and saluted mockingly. "Sir, yes, sir! Ladies first. That includes you, Free Willy."

"I will kick your butt, Odd."

Jérémie turned back to the screens and settled into the chair. Sure, life as a computer professor had once held its appeal for him, but that was behind him now—or ahead, rather. He didn't have to focus on his future anymore. And nothing would ever beat the thrill and nostalgia of guiding the Lyoko warriors into battle.

"Odd, you'll to go last," he said through the intercom, starting the transfer process. He checked the cameras as the two girls and William each selected a scanner and stepped in. "Ready? Transfer: Yumi! Transfer: Aelita!" The two avatars appeared in separate windows with no error messages in sight. He typed the _scann(start)_ command in at an alarming speed. It was something his fingers had never forgotten how to do.

"Transfer: William! Scanner: Yumi!"

More commands. When everyone had finally been scanned, Jérémie typed in the last few bits of data the computer needed. His finger hovered over Enter as he checked for errors on more time, then he brought it down with a satisfying click.

"Virtualization!"

* * *

Author's note: So yeah, that's it. Sorry for the convenience and...happiness of it, but this idea came to me pretty late into the fic and I liked it much, much better than what was originally going to happen. But, hey, I think I've successfully created an AU world where XANA is revived...and that return trip must have given him one heck of a power boost, so the 'kids' have their work cut out for them. I hope you enjoyed reading!


End file.
